Lifting your kids

I’ve coached in 430 football games. Counting the games I played in, its over 500. Football, like any contact sport, is vicious. It’s brutal. Collision after collision. Like minor MVCs – motor vehicle collisions. Each impact adds up.

Like any high-risk job, high-risk sports carry potential catastrophic consequences. You can get killed or injured for life. Here’s my message as a parent and a grandparent to parents: i. Sports have the potential to positively transform your children. ii. Contact sports are serious business. iii. I have calculated a workload formula for my players based on my personal research that I believe constitutes “high-risk training.”

Don’t fall into the ‘blood-thirst’ trap. The ‘blood-thirst’ trap is the bullshit that violent sports are somehow entertaining. They’re not. Society has progressed from gladiator days. Sports is a double-edge sword. It can build up kids or it can tear them apart. The difference is off-field training. The major component of high-risk training is lifting. It’s not the only component of high-risk training but it’s at the top of the list. It’s never failed to work out for my teams. Those who work out win and go to the next level. Those who don’t, don’t.

Don’t take chances. Don’t fool yourself. If you are a parent, invest in off-field training. If you’re dreaming of seeing your kid get a scholarship or play in the pros, LIFT them by teaching them to lift.